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In this article, we will be taking a look at the 15 major companies that accept Bitcoin as payment. To skip our detailed analysis, you can go directly to see the 5 Major Companies that Accept Bitcoin as Payment.
The world of cryptocurrency is a strange one, and despite having been in existence for well over a decade, anyone dealing in cryptocurrency is still seen as shady, though recent evens, which we'll talk more about, may provide some reason behind this belief. Bitcoin was the first cryptocurrency in the world, created by a person with the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto, whose identity is still unknown. First used in 2009, when its cost was close to $0, Bitcoin's price has wildly fluctuated ever since. To maintain the bitcoin blockchain, ensuring its completeness and consistency, miners step in, in a method known as proof-of-work, which is extremely time consuming, not to mention requiring a lot of processing power.
Once bitcoin started to gain in popularity, other cryptocurrencies followed, with the total number of cryptocurrencies now exceeding 12,000. The most popular of the other cryptocurrencies is definitely Ethereum, which also has the second highest market cap after Bitcoin and recently shifted from proof-of-work to proof-of-stake, which is expected to result in reduction of consumption of energy by an incredible 99.95%.
While initially costing just a few cents, Bitcoin kept gaining in value over time. In 2010, the first transaction in Bitcoin was conducted by crypto enthusiast Laszlo Hanyecz, when he ordered 2 large pizzas from Papa John's International for 10,000 bitcoins which were worth around $40 at the time. Today, they are worth over $166.2 million. At their peak, they were worth over $640 million. In 2013, the price of Bitcoin jumped to around $100 which many considered to be a bubble. The price kept increasing steadily over the next four years, crossing $1,000 in early 2017. 2017 was the first year of stratospheric growth in the price of Bitcoin which crossed $10,000 within the same year, a jump of around 1,000%. 2018 meanwhile saw the first major crash after the currency became popular, closing the year at under $4,000, resulting in many people losing out on their investments. This volatility demonstrated by the cryptocurrency has not decreased or matured over time as 2019 saw the price jumping again to around $10,600 before falling to $7,200 in January 2020. But it was in 2020 and then the first three quarters of 2021 that the price of the cryptocurrency kept increasing with no end in sight at that time, peaking at around $64,000 in November 2021, before crashing over the next year to its current price of close to $17,000, with most other cryptocurrencies following suit but exhibiting even more volatility.
While crypto enthusiasts have long decried regulation and have supported Bitcoin precisely because there is no regulation involved, 2022 has shown the risks of having something worth hundreds of billions of dollars and yet not being regulated at all, with scams rife in addition to corruption and manipulation. In 2022, one of the top 10 cryptocurrencies, Luna, collapsed completely, wiping out $45 billion from the crypto market in just one week. Earlier in November, FTX, a cryptocurrency exchange based in the Bahamas, collapsed after news emerged that Sam Bankman-Fried's Alameda Research held a position worth $5 billion in FTT, the native token of FTX. FTX, the company that was valued at about $32 billion, went from its peak to bankruptcy within a matter of just 10 days.
Because of the lack of regulation and the volatility associated with Bitcoin, many countries have banned it, with nine countries having banned it completely and an additional fifteen countries have banned it implicitly. Some other countries meanwhile have embraced it whole-heartedly, including El Salvador which has actually made Bitcoin legal tender, with the same move being made by the Central African Republic in 2022. Meanwhile, other countries have used it because of its anonymity and not being regulated such as Iran, which often uses Bitcoin to bypass sanctions imposed by the West. Ukraine has been a major beneficiary of Bitcoin, using it to accept donations during the Russia Ukraine war which began in early 2022.
While countries and governments have been wary of Bitcoin, many companies are now considering embracing Bitcoin and using it as a form of payment, which represents major growth for a cryptocurrency which for several years after its creation was primarily used for illegal, nefarious purposes such as buying illegal drugs or making payments for illegal activities on the Dark Web. One of the first companies to adopt Bitcoin was a Fortune 500 company which started doing so in 2014. According to Bloomberg, in 2018, the 17 biggest crypto processing merchants handled transactions in Bitcoin worth $69 million which was a significant decrease from 2017 which recorded $411 million. Since chargebacks can't be processed and the cost of using Bitcoin is high, many vendors refuse to use it.
In 2021, when Bitcoin was setting a new record for all time high prices every few days or weeks, and people were expecting it to reach $100,000, Tesla, Inc. (NASDAQ:TSLA) gave it a huge boost with CEO Elon Musk, who has historically preferred Tweets over press releases, announcing in March 2021 that Tesla, Inc. (NASDAQ:TSLA) would be accepting Bitcoin as payment, while also investing $1.5 billion in Bitcoin. However, in May 2021, Musk announced that Tesla, Inc. (NASDAQ:TSLA) would stop accepting Bitcoin as payment, reversing course in just two months, citing the environmental cost of Bitcoin as its primary reason behind this reversal, as if that was something that the company hadn't known about two months prior.
With Tesla, Inc. (NASDAQ:TSLA) no longer accepting Bitcoin as payment, the list of major companies that accept Bitcoin as payment has changed from the prior year. So, without further ado, let's take a look at the amended list, starting with number 15:
15. Coca-Cola Amatil Limited
Total revenue of the company (in billions): $1.73
One of the biggest distributors of Coca-Cola, Coca-Cola Amatil announced in June 2020 that its vending machines would accept cryptocurrencies as payment too.
14. Etsy, Inc. (NASDAQ:ETSY)
Total revenue of the company (in billions): $2.3
Etsy, Inc. (NASDAQ:ETSY) is an American e-commerce company. There are well over 100 million items on sale on Etsy, Inc.'s (NASDAQ:ETSY) marketplace. There are many different products on Etsy, Inc. (NASDAQ:ETSY) that can be purchased through Bitcoin.
13. Overstock.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:OSTK)
Total revenue of the company (in billions): $2.55
Overstock.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:OSTK) is an American retailer which mainly sells furniture. Overstock.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:OSTK) became the first major retailer in the world in 2014 to start accepting Bitcoin as payment. However, Bitcoin payments only account for less than 1% of the company's daily cash intake.
12. Norwegian Air
Total revenue of the company (in billions): $4.1
Norwegian Air is the biggest airline in Norway. The company has invested in a Norwegian cryptocurrency exchange, paving the way for accepting cryptocurrency as payments for its services.
11. Restaurant Brands International Inc. (NYSE:QSR)
Total revenue of the company (in billions): $5.73
Restaurant Brands International Inc. (NYSE:QSR) is the owner of Burger King, in addition to the popular Canadian coffee shop chain Tim Hortons, being formed through the merger of both companies in a deal worth $12.5 billion. The Burger King in Germany has started accepting payments in Bitcoin.
10. Yum! Brands, Inc. (NYSE:YUM)
Total revenue of the company (in billions): $6.58
Yum! Brands, Inc. (NYSE:YUM) is a fast food restaurant company which owns some of the most famous fast food brands including KFC, Taco Bell and Pizza Hut. Pizza Hut, one of the biggest brands of Yum! Brands, Inc. (NYSE:YUM), announced in late 2020 that it would accept Bitcoin payments in Venezuela.
9. Rakuten, Inc.
Total revenue of the company (in billions): $12.12
The Japanese online retailer has been allowing payments through Bitcoin since 2021.
8. Whole Foods Market Inc. (NASDAQ:WFM)
Total revenue of the company (in billions): $16
Whole Foods Market Inc. (NASDAQ:WFM) is a subsidiary of Amazon, one of the largest retailers in the world. Whole Foods Market Inc. (NASDAQ:WFM) has operations in the U.S. and the U.K. You can use Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies as well to make payments at Whole Foods Market Inc. (NASDAQ:WFM).
7. Virgin Group
Total revenue of the company (in billions): $16.6
Virgin Airlines and Virgin Mobile, subsidiaries of Virgin Group both accept Bitcoin as payment for services.
6. PayPal Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:PYPL)
Total revenue of the company (in billions): $25.37
PayPal Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ: PYPL) operates online payment systems and currently has operations in dozens of countries globally. PayPal Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ: PYPL) allows you to buy, sell or hold cryptocurrency.
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Disclosure: None. 15 major companies that accept Bitcoin as payment is originally published at Insider Monkey.
